


That Doesn't Belong in a Museum

by sunalso



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alien Artifact, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Museum trip, Or the second half of S5 of AoS, background fitzsimmons, family matters, not compliant with infinity war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-08 00:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14682348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunalso/pseuds/sunalso
Summary: AU. Deke's grandparents take him on a trip to a museum, where he runs into one Peter Parker. There's just the itty bitty problem of one alien artifact showing up.This fic ignores most of Infinity War and the second half of S5 of Agents of SHIELD. Because who wouldn't? *drinks wine*Beta'd by Gort.





	That Doesn't Belong in a Museum

Peter was sitting in the museum cafeteria trying to draw exactly no attention to himself. He was pretty sure Mr. Stark had pulled some strings, and most likely made a hefty donation to the PTA, to make it so Peter could still do things like go on school trips.

At least this one had been sufficiently boring.

Peter was sitting with Ned at one of the smaller tables in the dining area, poking at the food on his plate. Was even the food at the national history museum supposed to be educational? Or was it to spark curiosity as you tried to identify it?

Beside him, Ned was snapping pictures of their meal for later attempts at categorizing it. Peter looked up from the table and saw a man holding a tray. The guy’s hair didn’t seem interested in going only one direction, and the expression on his face was one of complete bewilderment.

Peter knew what that kind of being lost felt like. “Hey,” he shouted at the guy. “You can sit here.”

The man came over and put his tray down, sat, and stuck out his hand. “Hi, thanks. This place is crazy.”

“Tell me about it,” Peter said, shaking the guy’s hand.

“I’m Deke Shaw. I got dragged to this museum by my grandparents because they thought it’d be good for me.” He made air quotes as he said the last part. “Then one of the curators wanted to speak to them about something, so I got ten bucks and directions to the cafeteria.”

“We’re on a school trip.” Peter vaguely gestured at himself and Ned, along with the other students seated around the dining room. “This is Ned, and I’m Peter Parker.”

Deke’s eyes got really wide. He leaned forward and dropped his voice. “Like…the Peter Parker?”

Peter’s face flushed. “Er, yeah. How do you know—”

Deke waved a hand. “My grandparents are in S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Ned frowned. “How old are your grandparents?”

“Oh-“ Deke picked up his fork. “They’re the same age as me.” He shoveled some of the unidentifiable goop into his mouth, then spoke around it. “Time travel is kind of wild.”

Peter blinked, shared a look with Ned, then stared at Deke. “T-t-time travel?”

“Yeah. I found out the word for the future I’m from is ‘dystopian’, though don’t worry, it’s all fixed now, and the Earth doesn’t go—” he dropped his fork and spread his hands apart, fingers wiggling “—kablooey.” He shrugged. “I’m just left over now. Which is cool. But now I have to learn about history and laws and stuff.” He rolled his eyes and retrieved his fork.

“Whoa,” Ned said.

Peter nodded his agreement. Whoa.

Ned tapped his fingers on the top of the table. “Do you know any cool future stuff?”

“I know six alien numbers,” Deke said.

“Cool,” Peter said at the same time as Ned.

Deke grinned. “I was able to blow up a spaceship once because of that.”

“Wow,” Ned said. “You’re like, Luke Skywalker or something.”

Deke raised a brow. “Who?”

“Not important.” Peter pushed his tray away. It really was gross food, not that Deke seemed to mind. Maybe future food was even worse by comparison. “Though you should ask your grandparents to show you more movies.”

Deke snorted. “I can try. My grandma is pretty strict about screen time.”

“My Aunt May is the same way,” Peter said. “I have chores and homework and quality time, and then maybe I can check YouTube.”

“What’s YouTube?” Deke asked as he finished his meal and pushed the tray to the side.

Ned looked horrified and pulled out his phone. “Let me show you.”

Peter had to laugh, both at the ridiculous videos Ned chose to show Deke and Deke’s delighted reaction to viral videos of cats.

“You got any of monkeys?” Deke asked. “Things usually go over easier with my grandma if I have gramps on my side, though he convinced her I should play Halo with him and his friend and…that didn’t go well.”

“No Halo in the future?” Peter said.

Deke shook his head. “No, but I kept winning and gramps broke a controller when he threw it. Which somehow became my fault.”

“Ugh, parents,” Ned said.

All three of them shared a moment of silent camaraderie.

It was broken by a warning klaxon going off and the regular lights blacking out, followed a second later by the emergency yellow lights turning on.

Peter groaned. Trouble seemed to follow him. It was just supposed to be a boring trip to a boring museum to see boring exhibits.

An automated voice crackled to life. “Potential contamination on floor three, section four, please stay where you are and await further instruction.” The message started to repeat, but Deke had already shot to his feet.

“Third floor, section four, that’s my grandparents,” he sputtered, the color draining from his face. He took off like a shot.

Peter glanced at Ned.

“I’ll just stay here and cover for you, or something,” Ned said, slumping in his seat.

“Thanks!” Peter was already sprinting after Deke, catching up to him on the stairs to the third floor. They blew by startled patrons and museum staff, and Deke barreled right through an unmarked door into a back hallway. He slid to a stop in the open doorway to a room full of storage cabinets and tables. Peter nearly ran into him.

“Deke!” a woman’s voice said. “You shouldn’t be here. The artifact the curator wanted us to look at is not terrestrial in origin.”

Peter peeked around Deke’s shoulder. The woman speaking had brown hair pulled into a ponytail. There was another woman with short cropped black air and a museum ID badge on a lanyard around her neck, who looked close to panic as she cowered against the wall between two shelves stacked with a mishmash of random museum artifacts. 

“Listen to Jemma,” said a man, who was standing with his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face.

“Seriously?” Deke put his hand on his hips in nearly exactly the same manner as the other guy. Deke clearly hadn’t been kidding. He was the same age as his grandparents. The family resemblance was pretty obvious. “If it’s not terrestrial, shouldn’t I be the first person you ask?”

“He has a point,” the brown-haired woman said.

“No.” The man’s scowl deepened. “It’s not safe. He shouldn’t be here.”

The woman’s face softened until she caught sight of Peter. “Deke, who’s that?” she asked.

There was a rumble from a baton-shaped object laying on one of the tables. The museum curator let out a scream and ran for the exit, forcing Peter and Deke to move out of her way to avoid being trampled. Once she had disappeared down the hallway, Deke walked into the room and Peter trailed behind him.

“This is Peter Parker,” Deke said, jerking a thumb at him.

“Like…” the woman trailed off.

Deke nodded. “Yeah, that one. He’s pretty cool.” He pointed at the woman. “That’s Jemma.” His finger shifted to indicate the man. “And that’s Fitz. My grandparents. They’re really smart.”

“Hi,” Peter said, giving a little wave.

“Nice to meet you, Peter,” Jemma said, while Fitz just grunted. She crossed her arms and looked at the object on the table. “The museum has had this in their collection for a long time and was hoping we could identify it. The curator was touching it, and it shot out a purple light as started shaking. She dropped it, but it’s still emitting a vibration at slowly decreasing intervals.”

“There were marking on it,” Fitz said. “They didn’t look familiar, but we think it’s Asgardian. I’ve called a S.H.I.E.L.D. team in to contain it.”

Deke crouched so he was eye level with the silver rod, just as it gave another slight vibration. “Uh, purple light, runes…did one of them look like an upside-down hat with a spoon in it?”

“See?” Fitz said to Jemma. “I told you it didn’t look like a snail.”

“Yes,” Jemma replied to Deke.

Deke quickly straightened up. “This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.”

“What is it?” Peter asked.

“It a..a..damn it, the name’s hard to pronounce, and there’s a sound in there humans can’t make.”

“Short version,” Fitz said as he moved to put an arm around Jemma’s waist.

“It’s a bomb. Counting down to when it goes off.”

“How far away is that team?” Peter squeaked, backing up from the table.

“Too far,” Deke said.

Jemma pursed her lips. “Can we slow it down?”

“Maybe. Is there any ice?”

She ran to a small fridge tucked in a corner. “Not much.”

Deke grabbed a carved wooden bowl off one of the storage shelves and went to his knees beside her.

“That’s a Tibetan—” she started.

“It’s going to be an atomized bowl if we don’t get the bomb on ice,” Deke said. Working together, they quickly scooped the ice from the freezer into the bowl, bringing it to the table where Fitz shoved the rod into it. “Do you have your web shooters?” Deke asked Peter.

Peter let them drop into place. “Yeah, of course. Really didn’t want to have to use them.”

“Can you make it so this stuff all sticks together?”

Peter shot a short blast that targeted the bowl, ice, and rod.

“Thanks,” Deke said. “Now we need to get outside. Like, roof outside.”

“I’m going to have to be the one to carry it,” Peter said. Though the last thing he wanted to deal with was a ticking alien time bomb. He grabbed the webbing and nodded at the others.

“This way,” Jemma said, leading them further into the bowels of the employees-only part of the museum. They found the stairs and ran up three flights, only to be presented with a locked security door.

Peter transferred the bowl to under one arm and pulled out his phone. “I’ll call Happy, uh, Mr. Stark’s head of—”

“No time,” Fitz snapped, yanking the cover off the electronic lock. He did something to the innards, and the door clicked open.

Peter stared at him.

“What?” Fitz said. “It’s a museum, not bloody Fort Knox.”

They rushed out onto the flat expanse of tarpapered roof. The rod was vibrating nearly continuously, but not quite.

“How big is the explosion going to be?” Jemma asked.

“I’ve only seen it once, from a distance,” Deke said. “Punched a hole in the side of a spaceship. So, powerful in a small space but it’s not a nuke or something.”

There were no nearby buildings, but there was an array of fairly sturdy metal antennas with satellite dishes attached to them.

Peter sighed. “I think this is up to me. You better watch out in case it goes off before I can get it high enough. There’s not much time.”

He started climbing, moving as fast as he could. He looked back to find Fitz grabbing both Jemma and Deke and shielding them both behind him, a look of grim determination on his face.

Peter reached the top of the tower, spooled out a length of web with the bowl and rod at the end of it, whipped it a circle, and letting go when the bowl was at the top of an arc. It sailed into the sky and exploded with a blinding flash of purple light and a shockwave that knocked him to the ground.

He sat up a second later to find three concerned faces hovering over him. “I’m alright,” he croaked, and Deke stuck out a hand to help him to his feet.

Jemma’s phone rang. “Team’s here,” she said, before answering. “Yes, quite, that was an alien bomb exploding.”

Peter’s phone went off. It was Mr. Stark.

“How much is this one going to cost me?” he asked.

“Er, um…not much? There was this priceless bowl, but the bomb didn’t hurt anyone. Fitz and Jemma from SHIELD are here—”

“Right. Tell those two the job offer still stands and to say hi to Coulson. If you need me to say anything to the school, let me know.”

The line went dead.

A bunch of new people had shown up, and Jemma and Fitz were talking to them. Peter went to stand next to Deke.

“That was exciting,” Peter said.

Deke grimaced. “Yeah. Y’know, I told them I didn’t want to come today.”

“I’m glad you did. Otherwise that bomb could have blown up half the museum. And I think it’s nice they’re trying to help you.”

“You don’t have to live with them,” Deke grumbled.

“Your grandpa just bodily shielded you. I think they care.” Peter couldn’t even imagine how weird it all must be.

“My grandma, Jemma…she makes these great sandwiches…I was just on my own for a long time. I knew how to get by where I was, and now I need help. And that’s hard.”

“I hear you,” Peter said. “But you have people that love you, and that counts for something.”

Deke nodded, his expression thoughtful.

“You should try being sixteen.”

“Hey.” Deke turned to him. “When we were eating downstairs there was this girl, pretty with dark, curly hair? She was looking at you.”

Did he mean Michelle? “She just thinks I’m weird.”

Deke made a face. “Nah, man. It wasn’t a he’s-a-weirdo look. I’m telling you, you should totally put a lemon in her bed.”

Peter blinked. He really, really hoped that was some kind of future-speak for something completely normal. “Right. Sure. I’m just going to climb down a wall now and go hang out in the bus. Pretend I was asleep the entire time and hopefully not get in trouble.”   

Deke patted his shoulder. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Same. Maybe we can hang and play Halo sometime.”

“Cool.”

When nobody was looking, he darted for the edge of the roof and vaulted over the edge. This secret identity stuff was a pain.

He peeked back over just in time to see Deke walk over to Fitz. “Hey,” Deke said. “Have you heard of this thing called YouTube?”                                                                                                                                                                                                         


End file.
